Hey family,

Soo… today in Spencerville, I stood paw-to-paw with aliens right out of Fido’s Sci-Fi! Had to rally all the critters to show these space varmints that Curley ain’t just fluff. Used wit, courage, and a bit o’ good ol’ fashioned chasing to keep our fuzzy tails wagging in peace. Just another day proving there’s no mutt like a Keeshond in a pinch! Home is safe, tail’s still curly. Catch y’all at supper.

Barks and smirks,
Curley 🐾

Well, shucks. If you had mosied down the peach-tinted avenues of Spencerville’s Lower Golden Gate Gardens any day ‘fore this one, you’d have seen yours truly, Curley of the Keeshond kin, generally makin’ merry amid the blooms and the bees. But this day, I reckon, stood out peculiar, like a cat in a kennel.

You see, it all began at the crack of dawn, just about the time when the sun yawns and stretches over the Furry Friends Art Gallery. Something zipped across the sky, quicker than a hare at the county fair. A silver specter it was, with more gleam than a dog’s dream of a mountain of bones. Them Spencerville folk — the cats, dogs, parakeets and such — paused their bustlin’ and hustlin’, gazin’ aloft with corkscrew necks.

“Specimen identified: Canine, Keeshond.” The voice crept in without paw or print — smooth and chilling as the underbelly of a fish. Now, I’ve wagged tongues with the best of ’em, but this gabble didn’t bear no warmth. No sir, it was colder than a winter’s night with the woodpile run dry.

A thingamajig, size of a chicken coop but shinin’ like the Pawsome Pancakes’ diner sign at midnight, hovered over the Wagging Tail Bookstore. This was no pampered poodle’s parade float; it was just about as friendly as a porcupine in a pettin’ zoo. And quicker than you can say “fetch”, there was a scatterin’ of paws, a symphony of meows, and a flutter of feathers.

Now, a Keeshond is a thing of fluff, true, but we carry our weight in courage, with plenty enough to spare. My sibling Puddlez stood firm at my side, whiskers a-quiver, eyes wide as saucers twice licked clean. “What in tarnation…?” Puddlez’s bark was half-inquiry, half-proclamation, every syllable pricklin’ the fur along my spine.

I narrowed my eyes. “Aliens,” I growled, the word feelin’ odd in my muzzle, like a squirrel defendin’ a stash of acorns. “They look for a bone to pick, they’ll find this canine’s got teeth.”

Spencerville weren’t no stranger to the fantastical, what with the lofty tales of Red Beagle Beach and such, but this invasion was as welcome as fleas at a fur ball. Folks around these parts were used to livin’ side by husky side, with the Chow Hound Café servin’ up hot plates of camaraderie. But these invaders — they threatened to turn our ripe ol’ reunion plot into a right troublesome pickle jar.

The day had been hog-tied and flipped upside down, and I had the inklin’ that it was up to ol’ Curley to set it right. Puddlez nosed at me, his tail sendin’ a Morse code of worry. I wasn’t about to nose-dive into melancholy, no sir. A Keeshond’s heart may miss those who ain’t near, but it beats strong and sure as a drum in a parade march.

I set to ponderin’ about that racquetball of mine, the one that rolls like thunder and leaps like lightning. “That’ll scatter ’em like leaves in a windstorm,” I muttered, the plan hatchin’ like chicks in springtime. “Maybe our otherworldly guests fancy a game of chase-the-ball.”

And so the game was afoot. Or a-paw, if you’d have it. Puddlez and I, we rallied the townsfolk of Spencerville, cats tucking their tails and dogs letting loose their howls. The alien specter could hover and buzz, but it had yet to meet a drove of Spencerville beasts with their dander up and their spirits afire.

“You want a piece of Spencerville, do you?” I barked at the thingamajig, nary a whiff of fear in my voice. “Then you better be ready for a doggone good time!” With them words, I raced through familiar haunts, the alien apparition tailin’ like a bluetick on a fresh track.

True ‘nough, Spencerville might be a kind of limbo, a cosy cranny ‘twixt yesterday’s farewells and tomorrow’s embraces. But by my fur, it’s a limbo filled with warmth and livin’, not to be trifled with by no space-invadin’ varmints.

As for what happened next, well, that’s a yarn for another day. Just know that in Spencerville, even when starry-eyed strangers come a-knockin’, it’s the love and the wild, joyful reunion we’re all hankerin’ for that gives us the gumption to face down any trials, earthly or otherwise.

And at the end of the day, as I lay ‘neath the boughs of the sturdy old trees in the gardens, stars twinklin’ overhead, one thought came as soft and comforting as a well-worn blanket: Spencerville endures, and so shall we all, bound by paw prints on the heart and the promise of an ever-after spent in the best of company.

The End.